Interview: May 21, 2007

Martha Hodgesmith

Martha, could you describe your project that you have been working on with Amanda [Reichard]?
The focus of research project 3 is to look at the economic utility and related health costs for persons that are moving out of long-term care facilities into the community with an emphasis at really looking at people’s primary and secondary health conditions to assess how their health status may impact their ability to participate in the community and live independently. The state of Kansas has recently received a $37 million dollar, five-year grant to facilitate people moving from institutional settings. With this opportunity, we believe that the researchthat we are involved with will play a major role with helping SRS [Social Rehabilitation Services] and the Department of Aging assesses the success of their institutional movement to the community.

How is this response to NIDRR’s [National Institute of Disability Rehabilitation Research] priorities that it set forth?
A key aspect of MICL [Rehabilitation Research and Training Center on Measurement and Interdependence in Community Living,] and our research center is that NIDRR requested in response to the RFP that research be conducted regarding the implementation of the Olmstead lawsuit and practices that service facilitators or barriers to independent and community living. This recent grant to the state of Kansas from the centers of Medicare and Medicaid services really represents a next step in the kind of effort that NIDRR is interested in knowing about, which is looking at specific policies and practices that states are implementing in response to the Administration’s New Freedom Initiative and implementation of the Olmstead lawsuit. We believe that this research contributes greatly to that assessment of success.

Real short, what role are you going to play in this project?
Dr. Card as the principal investigator will be doing the heavy lifting of data analysis and reflection on that analysis in terms of its individual and group impact. With the background that I bring as a former administrator of HCBS [Home and Community Based] community-based programs, I believe that I can help take the data analysis and integrate it into policy analysis that will assist not only other researchers but state agency personnel as well as consumers and providers of services that they work with in assessing what policies can be implemented to facilitate the accomplishment of moving from institutional to community-based settings. And, at the same time ensuring that their primary health maintains itself and that secondary conditions are prevented. Because research indicates presently that health status is an important facilitator to being successful in living independently.